


Only Pieces

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: Into the Storm and Rout [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Qamek Usage, Pre-Relationship, Psychological Trauma, Qun, Qunari Culture and Customs, Seheron, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4828058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Qun tells him that struggle is an illusion. The Iron Bull wishes he could just believe it.</p><p>Ashkaari, Hissrad, the Iron Bull: past and present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ashkaari

**Author's Note:**

> Rating is due to some dark, heavy themes in this fic: PTSD, grief, violence, and especially Bull's past under the Qun, which leaves him complicit in and subjected to things like brainwashing, etc.
> 
> This fic could stand alone, but does take place in tandem with other parts in the series—parts 1-6, in particular.

_The purpose of the world renews itself with each season. Each change only marks_  
_A part of the greater whole._  
_The sea and the sky themselves:_  
_Nothing special. Only pieces._

—Tome of Koslun, The Soul Canto

* * *

 Ashkaari thinks that he will be a Sten.

They whisper their best guesses to each other after the lamp has been blown out for the night. It's hard to tell—they are all young still—but the tamassrans divide them up by the way they spend their days. Taashath's knees are scraped from climbing trees, Kas is always bruised, and Issala comes home with a faint powdery residue on her hands.

Mashev used to wear flour dust in her hair, too, until the day she didn't come home.

"Stop calling me that," she'd grouched at him once, flicking crumbs at his chest. "It'll be harder to learn my name if you don't."

Ashkaari doesn't think she'll forget. The stitches won't let her.

He is bruised like Kas, but his head aches too with long afternoon discussions of tactics. Tonight, they drink little stolen cupfuls of the cocoa Issala stole from Tama; its warmth eases the lingering throb in his skull. Their only light is the moon, streaming through the window. They don't dare relight the lamp for fear that Tama will smell the wick burning. Kas stands the first lookout just inside the shadow of the door.

"Why do you want to be a Sten, anyway?" Issala demands in an undertone, fingers clutched around her cup. Her bright white hair is mussed, pulling loose of the braid she wears between her horns, which have started to coil like a ram's toward her ears.

"You get to hit things," he explains, like he's done a dozen times before. "And tell other people when to hit things."

Issala's nose wrinkles—at him, or maybe just at the bitter heat of the cocoa. "The only thing I want to hit is the bread when it doesn't rise right," she declares.

"Maybe Kas, too," Taashath agrees. "Whenever one of his bruises starts to fade, I feel like I should."

Issala giggles under her breath, and Taashath snorts into his cocoa, nearly spraying it everywhere. From the door, Kas grumbles, "Don't."

Kas is the youngest of them; his pride is easily bruised. "You'd have to catch him to hit him," Ashkaari says. "I never can."

The others scoff, but he sees the smile that Kas keeps at the corner of his mouth.

They go back to sipping. The night is balmy, the gentle breeze stirring the hangings around the window, just enough so that the heat is not unbearable. Ashkaari does feel _some_ guilt at stealing from Tama, who is kind and fair, but he also loves cocoa. The damage is done, anyway. Issala knew he would stop her if she told him her plan; that's why she asked Taashath to help, and not him.

Down the hallway, a floorboard creaks. Ashkaari looks up from his half-drunk cup.

"Are you paying attention?" he asks Kas, listening.

Kas starts, his eyes darting away from his envious study of the drinks, and glances out into the hallway instead. His widening eyes are not reassuring.

"She's coming!" he hisses, darting away from the door.

"Cups under the pallets," Issala says, already shoving hers under, "quick!"

Ashkaari bolts down the rest of his—his tongue burns—and jams it under his pallet, but he knows that the attempt at deception is hopeless, and so do the others. They've only just disguised the lumps under their beds with blankets when Tama enters the room, eyes narrowed. Issala shrinks from the pallet she hid her cup beneath.

"You are supposed to be sleeping," she chastises, then sniffs the air. "What's that I smell?"

She kneels down beside Issala, following her nose. When she uncovers the cup, Issala's cheeks have darkened with shame and fear, her eyes luminous with tears and fixed on the floor.

One by one, Tama uncovers the cups hidden beneath all their pallets. Even Kas, who hadn't yet drunk, twists his hands together.

"Which of you stole the cocoa?" Tama asks. She is not angry, only stern, her mouth an unyielding line. She looks around the room, brows raised, and her gaze returns to Issala. "Issala, was it you?"

Though she knows it will do no good, Issala shakes her head.

"I think I see." Ashkaari knows that there is no _thinking_ about it; Tama _does_ see, and that is that. "Now that you are faced with the consequences of your actions, you wish you had not acted.

He is not sure why he does it—to see if he can, maybe, or because Issala looks like she might die of disgrace. He gets to his feet and says, "Tama."

She turns, looking down from her great height. He meets her eyes. He wills himself to be still.

"It was me," he says.

He sees the tiny flicker of movement at the corner of his vision that is Issala. Her head jerks up from her study of the floor to stare at him instead. He doesn't look at her. He is sure Tama will know the lie if he looks away.

"Why, Ashkaari?" Tama asks.

He judges it safe to duck his head. He _is_ embarrassed, anyway. He should not have drunk with the others. He is just as guilty as Issala.

"I like cocoa," he says, keeping his voice small. "And my head hurts. I thought…"

He keeps his eyes on the floor, his hands clasped tight. The room waits with baited breath for Tama's judgment.

"You will not attend your lessons this week," she says at last. "You will instead join the laborers who harvest the cocoa beans."

"Yes, Tama," he agrees. His heartbeat is so fierce against his chest that he cannot believe she does not hear it, see it, moving beneath his skin. "I'm sorry."

"If you do the required work to replace what was stolen from me, all is forgiven," she says. She gathers up the cups. "You other imekari will have extra chores this week. I will write them on the slate." When she departs, she leaves the door ajar behind her.

In silence, they all climb into their pallets. When his muscles have finally relaxed, Issala whispers—so quiet he almost doesn't hear her—"Tama always knows when I'm lying."

Ashkaari turns over. "Don't steal from her anymore. I don't know how good I'll be the second time."

"No one asked you to lie," she says, back to her usual cross self.

Soon he has new lessons. A new name follows behind. It fits him like his favorite pair of boots, settling deep in his bones the moment he hears it. Hissrad believes that he's been chosen for something great—like someone born without horns, he brags to Issala, and she just rolls her eyes.

Later, he'll think that something was broken in him all along.

* * *

"Oh, frig." Sera ducks behind Blackwall. "Keep it away from me!"

Trevelyan ignores her, offering her cupped palm to the horse to sniff. He snuffles and snorts, and a tentative smile creases her features.

"Alright," she says, in the same _to-the-Void-with-it_ tone she'd used when hiring Bull's Chargers. "I'll try it."

Seanna grins. Bull can see that she thinks Trevelyan won't make it past the second marker. Mage in a tower her whole life—where would she have learned to ride? Her foot feels for the stirrup, catching and almost dumping her, but just as Seanna has turned away to laugh, Trevelyan's body carries her up and through the motion. She settles comfortably in the saddle, leaning down to speak softly to the Forder.

Bull thinks of Mashev, who trained to be a baker before taking the chains, the collar, the stitches, and he wonders who Trevelyan would have been.

At the first marker, her mount explodes forward. Trevelyan doesn't just hang on; she moves with the horse, never bouncing in the saddle, her hands sure on the reins. When Bull glances at Seanna, her eyes have flown wide.

"I'll be dipped," she says faintly.

Sera watches through her fingers, occasionally yelping curses when Trevelyan whips around a corner. Blackwall guffaws, slapping his knee. "Maker, I didn't think she had it in her," he chuckles.

"Hand over the gold," Bull says, beckoning.

Blackwall tosses him a sovereign with one hand and wipes his eyes with the other as she rounds the bend, galloping down the last stretch. She pulls the Forder up when they pass the last gate. The horse prances his delight. The wind's blown strands of Trevelyan's hair free of the loose bun she keeps it in, and there's an exhilarated grin on her face.

"Fancy a harder track?" Seanna asks, all businesslike again.

"What do you think, boy?" Trevelyan says to the horse, patting his neck, and he whickers fondly as though already enamored with her.

She races the second course and then the third, and when the sun's slipped close to the horizon she finally swings down from the saddle and accepts her winnings. Seanna offers an apple to the horse, too. He munches happily beside Trevelyan while she counts her coin. The faint glow of the mark shines through her glove, glimmering against the little pile cupped in her hands.

"Didn't know they taught mages to ride horses," Sera says, and Trevelyan's shoulders go stiff. Her grin goes, snuffed like a candle. "Would help if you tried to escape, yeah?"

"I wasn't always a mage," Trevelyan tells her palms, slipping the silvers into her purse.

"Right." Sera's nose wrinkles. " _Lady_ Trevelyan."

She doesn't flinch at the title, though Sera forms it like a slur. "Ser Trevelyan, if you must," she says, her tone mild, as though she's taken no offense at all. "Let's make camp. We'll look for the wolves in the morning."

They load up their packs in the Forder's saddlebags and turn northward. Blackwall walks ahead with Sera—their laughter drifts back, carried by the breeze—but Bull falls back beside Trevelyan and the horse.

She glances at him and away again, the brief confidence gained from the race already devoured by Sera's baiting. It's her worst failing, the thing that Bull thinks might keep her from stopping the hole in the sky: give her a problem, something to work on, and she can solve it, gain strength from it, but ask her to deal with _people_ and she starts tripping over herself, like she's afraid an errant syllable will offend anyone within range. Can't make allies that way, and allies bring supplies, coin, all the things an Inquisition needs to keep going.

"I hope you aren't bored," she says, tucking a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. "I've heard a few stories from your lieutenant. All of them sound more exciting than this."

She gestures to the farms, but there's no hint of derision in her voice; she doesn't mind the hard mundanity of it in the slightest, only wonders if he does.

"Krem likes to put on a show about the fun jobs," he tells her. "They're usually the worthless ones, though."

She takes his meaning; he can see it in the fleeting smile she hides, ducking her head behind the Forder's neck. Bull's tall enough to see it, anyway.

It's obvious she's scared out of her wits—less so here, in the Hinterlands, but he's seen her standing in the snow at Haven, shivering and watching the Breach. She glances at her hand sometimes when she thinks no one's looking, and the way her mouth twists makes it clear that she's got no idea what she's doing, no faith that the mark will help her save a damn thing, but she keeps quiet about it.

Makes him curious. She's stuck with the mark, sure, but she doesn't _have_ to be stuck with the Inquisition. Sera's here because she's scared, plain and simple, wants to get that hole in the sky closed up so she can stop worrying about big-picture crap; Blackwall's here to make up for whatever dark past he's hiding behind that beard; the list goes on, rising up through the ranks until you get to the true believers like Cassandra and the do-gooders like Josephine, but as far as he can tell, Trevelyan fell into this mess and hasn't bothered trotting off, despite how deeply she loathes it. If she doesn't think the mark will make a difference, anyway, why doesn't she just start running?

People don't tell you anything unless you poke 'em a little, he thinks.

"Thought I might lose that sovereign," he says offhandedly. "Bet it's been twenty years since you rode a horse."

Her fingers tighten on the Forder's reins; her gloves creak, giving her away. "Only a month, actually." She tries to make her voice light, but she doesn't try to look at him. "I didn't walk to the Conclave."

"Must've been something," he muses. "Leaving the Circle after all that time."

"Something," she repeats. Her expression changes—closes. She's not skilled enough to make it look like anything other than a wall, one he isn't invited to scale.

Still—he keeps at it. There's a gap somewhere. "Yeah, I mean, I've never been _in_ one, but I've heard it's a lot of dusty books and templars. Nice change, to get some fresh air."

Her mouth's gone thin. "I'd have stayed in that tower, gladly, for the rest of my life, if it meant that none of this ever happened. Excuse me." She swings into the saddle and urges the Forder ahead, stopping Blackwall and Sera before they overshoot the campsite.

He's not bothered. She thinks she's slammed a door, but really, she's left it just open enough for him to listen in. He just needs a different tool.


	2. Rethsaam

"The Ariqun has a task for you."

Hissrad's heart leaps, but he shows a face only of polite attention. He's waited for this day—an assignment of his own, a chance to use the training he was given, an opportunity to give back to his people. Salit beckons him away from his studies. They approach the boundaries of Qunandar without further talk, but Hissrad is patient; his mentor will speak when it is necessary.

Atop the outer wall, Salit shades his eyes. "To the east, there is a camp of deserters," he says. "They must be returned to the Qun."

Hissrad turns this over in his mind. It seems too simple a task; there must be an element that Salit is concealing from him. "Are there many?" he asks.

"The Ariqun believes there are not more than you can handle," Salit replies, unconcerned. His brown eyes do not cease their long study of the jungle. "They are a few leagues off. Find them, and return them."

Hissrad already knows better than to ask whether he should return them alive or dead. He hopes for the former, and leaves the boundaries of Qunandar empty-handed. Even without his axe, he's a formidable enough foe, and he will not stumble blindly upon the camp. If there are too many, he'll return to Qunandar and revisit the tools available to him.

Dappled sunlight filters through the humid jungle, warming his shoulders where it touches. Sweat beads at the hollow of his throat, his temples, the roots of his hair, runs down into his beard. Occasionally, he sees a jewel-bright wing flash by. He keeps his pace brisk, looking for signs of travelers, and follows the path. There's no disruption to the sound of the birds calling, chattering; they pay him no mind.

It's going on midday when he first sees a sign of the deserters: footsteps and broken branches, leading away from the path. They did not even attempt to cover their tracks. _Maybe a false trail_ , he thinks, and searches up the path for another sign of their coming or going, but finds nothing. He follows the soft impressions in the dirt, quieter and slower now. The birds have ceased their whistling, which he takes as ominous. They weren't alarmed by _him_ ; there must be something much worse ahead.

The deserters have made shelter in a clearing, beneath one of the broader trees. It's neatly built. The two lean over the fire, a set of fish roasting on the spit, and talk in an undertone. Beneath the shelter, a child—horns not yet showing at all—sleeps on.

It's not a large enough group to put off chatty birds. There must be something about one of them that's alarmed the wildlife.

He lingers in the shadows, patient, and looks for something he can use. They both glance occasionally at the child. There are identical woven bands around their wrists, the tiny beads decorating them dull with age. They have not been in this clearing long; he suspects that they've moved each night, afraid to present a stationary target so close to Qunandar. When his eyes wander, he sees a scorch mark on a nearby tree, fresh.

He shifts, deliberately making noise. Their heads lift, eyes wide and anxious, searching the trees. The man gropes for his spear and gets to his feet. He is unfamiliar with the weapon—holds it awkwardly, like he will not know how to use it if he must.

"Show yourself," he demands, and Hissrad does, stepping out from behind the trees.

Closer, without foliage to block his view, he sees that they are young, hardly older than him. They shift automatically to conceal his view of the child, who must be at the heart of this.

"Leave," the spear-holder barks, punctuating this with a jab at the air.

"If I leave, someone worse will come," Hissrad says—not a threat, but an inevitability. He's offering them a bargain, an offer to work with _him_ : unarmed, nonthreatening, without escalation.

The woman touches the spear-holder's wrist; her wide, dark eyes plead with him. Slowly, he lowers the spear.

"We can't go with you," she says, looking back at Hissrad.

He tips his head to the side, just enough to spot the child. She's woken and found her feet; she stares at him around the legs of her keepers, eyes wide.

"Because of her," he guesses.

The woman's eyes gleam briefly; she moves without looking, shielding the girl again. "I won't let you take her," she says, her voice rising. "I won't."

Hearing the emotion in her keeper's voice, the child begins to cry. A fire starts at her feet.

The two hurry to put it out, tossing water from their supplies before it can spread to the loose leaves scattered on the ground. Disregarding the danger, the woman scoops the child up. The man stands close to her, his spear raised again.

"Hush," she whispers, gently rocking the girl. The remaining embers go dark. She turns her tear-stained face into the woman's shoulder, snuffling.

Hissrad sees what he must do. It sometimes hurts to lie, but it is better in the long run. Better that the child be given to a different keeper who will keep her safe. Better that the people protecting her re-learn their places and become stronger for their mistakes. It will not be easy for them, but it will be for the best.

"All is not lost." He gentles his voice. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"You're here to take us back to Qunandar," the spear-holder spits. "To be re-educated. To give her to an Arvaarad."

"It will keep her safe," Hissrad tells them. "You can't control her powers. You can't teach her." He speaks to the tamassran directly now. "You endanger her life with your actions."

The woman presses her hand to the child's head, stroking her hair. Her lips twist and tremble. It hasn't happened to her before, he thinks—finding a mage among her children. The first is always the hardest for tamassrans. Unlike the others in their care, they do not see them again; if they do, they don't recognize them. She knows the truth of it, but the reality is something else to bear entirely.

Tama was quiet for a week after they took Mashev away, he remembers. He would wake from a nightmare and go to find her already sitting up, hands wrapped around a cup of cocoa, eyes unfocused out the window, unseeing.

"They will make us mindless laborers for this," the man says. There is a note of panic in his voice, a trace of fear in his jerky movements on the spear.

Hissrad meets his eyes. "They'll help you return to your role. That is all."

Those who run, but don't sail south away from Par Vollen, do not truly want to leave, Salit tells him later. They wait in the jungle to return to the Qun. They wait for someone to show them the way.

When he next passes through the cocoa grove, the man is there, pulling the pods from the trees. The woven band is gone from his wrist.

* * *

Whenever they're in Haven, Trevelyan stops by.

Once per day—no more, no less. She shivers in the cold wind, her coat pulled tight around her, the snow up to her ankles, but she doesn't remark on it, and she doesn't pull her fur-lined hood up over her hair. She doesn't ask Bull whether or not _he_ is cold, either, which is a nice change. Everyone asks that in Haven, if they're brave enough to talk to him at all. Doesn't make for the most stimulating conversations.

She's just come from the stables, her hair mussed by the horse that's so fond of her, probably, and she bids him hello with a smile on her face, though she doesn't quite meet his eye.

They have soldiered through more than a month of closing rifts, endless walking, and ceaseless errands, and at the end of it all, he's more impressed with her than he thought he'd be. She's shy, it's true, and a chronic worrier, sifting through every decision like the world will end if she chooses wrong, her lip always bitten down with anxiety, but she has a knack for turning down the right path after a period of hesitation. He's seen her drape a blanket around a refugee's shoulders, ride like hell to get a potion back to a sick elf, lay down cover fire for their fellows as they push to the Hinterlands' outer limits, and she hasn't complained, hasn't flinched.

If she's kind—and he's seen that she is—it's not because she's naïve. He can see it in the way she holds herself when she speaks with Cullen or any of the resident templars: always standing further from them than she does from Bull, every inch of her body language screaming her fear so that anyone with half a brain between their ears knows about it. Even Cassandra gets a berth from her.

She has a scar just over her brow, not new but old, a dip that moves toward her temple and into her hairline. He doesn't have to ask where she got it.

It makes these chats of theirs even weirder in comparison. She's shy, but not afraid of _him_. Her posture relaxes when they talk, the crease between her brows easing into something more like curiosity, lips pursing thoughtfully.

It's a nice change for him, actually. She doesn't wince from him in terror or stare like she's trying to work out how to get him into her bed—not that he minds either; they're both better than the assholes who talk around him like he's too stupid to understand them. It's just an anomaly, and he finds anomalies interesting.

She blows into her cupped hands. "How do the Chargers fare?" she asks, narrowing her eyes to see through the dimming light. Krem is drilling with the rest, not far from Cullen's soldiers, the sweat gleaming on his brow.

"Spoiling for a fight," he admits, shifting the weight off his bad leg. Her eyes catch the movement—she's sharper than the others give her credit for, for all that she can't lie to save her life. "Been sitting on their hands since we got here."

"Hmm." Her eyes narrow thoughtfully. "Harding might appreciate the help, if some of them would go along on a forward scouting mission." She looks at him sidelong, reddening. "Though I've no idea if that's part of the agreement you made with Josephine. I should've read more closely."

"Nah, that's a good idea." He catches a hint of her smile before it vanishes behind her hands again. "Contract was simple enough. 'The talents of the Bull's Chargers are at the command of the Inquisition until the Breach is sealed, blah, blah, blah.' If there's something to do, my boys are happy to do it."

"Lovely," she says, beaming now; though her mouth is hidden behind her hands, her eyes crinkle up. "I'll talk to Harding. We've heard some disturbing rumors out of the Fallow Mire. Lot of rifts, it sounds like."

He grunts. "Demons. Great."

"They won't want your head, not with me hanging around." A little shiver of fear goes through her voice at that. "They find it so much easier to get into mages."

"Not reassuring, boss," he points out.

"If one gets me," she says, very matter-of-factly, "you'll kill me, and that'll be that."

It's not a joke; that's why it's so damn surprising. He looks at her sidelong and waits, thinking that he's closer to it now, the code by which she operates. He just has to be patient.

After a few beats of silence, she finally meets his eye, confusion wrinkling her brow. "What?" she asks.

He shifts again, moving further off his complaining ankle. Her frown deepens; she squints at his brace, distracted.

"Not a lot of mages in the south are so...pragmatic," he says.

"Not most of them, no, but I've known a fair few who were." She shrugs. "Doesn't matter whether I flinch from it or not. What matters is the person who's holding the sword. If it happens."

He looks across the yard—to Cassandra, sparring with Krem, to Cullen, instructing his troops.

"The mark won't work if I'm dead," she says, softer now. "They might try tranquility first, just to see if I could still close rifts even cut off from the Fade—but every minute counts, in a situation like that. They wouldn't do it. Not quick enough."

"But you think I would?" He _would_ —things could be a lot worse, with a demon driving the mark around—but he wants to know why she thinks so.

She hesitates, chewing her lip. "Qunari mages are different from Circle mages," she says at last. "I know they are. I don't know how much you've worked with them…"

"Not often," he tells her. "Drew too much attention, with the type of work I did in Seheron, but yeah, they're…different."

"I've read Varric's tale about Hawke." She frowns at her hands. "There was this one bit so awful that I figured he couldn't have made it up."

He snorts at that, and she gives a small chuckle, too.

"It was about a saarebas," she continues. "Separated from his...arvaraad?" Her pronunciation is clumsy and slow, but he nods. "And when Hawke got him free, he killed himself. He'd been vulnerable, and he didn't want to risk letting demons into the world. His arvaraad would have killed him for that, but Hawke interfered, so because his arvaraad couldn't do it, he—he did. Seems like that kind of mentality...that arvaraad, that saarebas, can't have been the only ones who felt that way. Our templars do, too, of course, but because I'm the Herald, because of the mark…I think they're all a little muddled about what standard protocol should apply, and what shouldn't. You're an outsider; your head's clearer." She brushes a flake of snow from her sleeve. "And, anyway, you hate demons. So. I know you'd do it."

She's not wrong. He's thought of how to handle it, just as he's thought of how to disarm Dalish. That window of hesitation is all it takes for disaster to strike, and most of their companions would hesitate if a demon snuck into Trevelyan's mind.

"I would," he agrees.

She doesn't flinch when given confirmation; she just nods, calmly, glad to hear that it's true. "Good." She takes a deep breath and releases it, as if physically casting off the weight of this conversation. "I'm for dinner. Are you hungry?"

He goes along with it. It's not a topic he wants to linger on, either. He likes her okay, after all, maybe more for this revelation. They are both compelled by duty, but he would take no pleasure in it.

"I'm always hungry," he informs her.

She rolls her eyes, grinning, and leads the way to the tavern.


	3. Sataareth

Hissrad learns to hate city fighting.

When there's an uprising, they have to clear Seheron block by block, check every dwelling, leave no door unopened. The civilians, for the most part, huddle in their homes. After four long years, he knows some of them; a few even relax as he passes, humans made small by the acrid smoke in the air, eyes wide with fear over the wet handkerchiefs tied to cover their mouths.

"Stay here," he tells the fruit merchant's family. "It will be over soon."

The promise wears thin. Seheron will never be over. Seheron is a forest fire, renewing at the slightest spark, waiting until the mast gets too thick to see the embers glowing underneath.

It's Tevinter mages today. It was Fog Warriors last month. He prefers the natives; they at least have some respect for life. Magisters from the Imperium have none.

The worst of them are on a street one block west. Salit signals to the airy warehouse to their left; they can cut over through the building, flank the mages. Salit's sent another unit straight down that street—eyes on the coming fighters, maybe the Vints will be surprised when Hissrad and the others show up to cut them down.

Hissrad tries the door. Locked. He puts his axe through it, and the brittle wood splinters.

He knows right away that it's a trap, but it's too late now to pass it by. The soldiers are waiting inside to pour out on the flank, provide support when the other unit hits. Hissrad wades in with a roar, drawing their attention away from the other end of the warehouse, axe already swinging.

The others work through the narrow opening after him, picking off the enemies he's left stunned by his initial blows. He's learned not to think too much in the thick of a battle like this. It's not chess. They all know their places; it's just a matter of getting to it, getting through, getting out to fight another day. He cuts, slashes, takes a hit here or there—his vitaar holds up—and focuses on getting through to the opposite wall.

He knocks an archer into the wall. The man's neck snaps sideways with the force of it. The fighting's lulled in his immediate area, so he checks his flank to see who needs the most help.

Vasaad. It's always fucking _Vasaad_.

He's got his back to a door, and he doesn't even know it, his eyes narrowed at the opponent he's sneaking strikes at with his daggers. Hissrad sees the shadow swell in the doorway behind him. He runs full out, the floorboards shaking beneath his feet, to make it in time.

He gets between Vasaad and the attacker, but his blow doesn't come down fast enough—the Vint gets his mace buried deep in Hissrad's boot and yanks up, tearing through fabric and flesh alike. He roars—the room goes briefly dim, then too bright—and takes the soldier's head off.

The room that produced this Vint is otherwise empty; he sees into its abandoned corners before he realizes that his leg is two seconds from dumping him on the floor. It shakes violently at the slightest weight. He sinks down, keeping one eye on the battle, and kicks the dead Vint away with his good leg.

The joint at his ankle is mangled, a mess of flesh and muscle and bone—he can see the white of it catch the light through the blood. He breathes deep, holds, releases, and waits for the fighting to stop.

He's been in Seheron longer than the recommended time. He doesn't even have to fight his stomach to keep his lunch, broken bone be damned. For a fleeting instant, he thinks he might welcome a reason to go home—but there's the fruit vendor to watch after, his bananas almost as good as the ones in Par Vollen, and Vasaad would get himself killed a week after Hissrad leaves.

He'll fight again. It's just a broken bone. There's too much left to do to go now.

Salit kneels down beside Hissrad when the fighting has cleared. He tries to report to his commander, but the man lays a hand on his shoulder to still him. "Finally got knocked down, Hissrad?" he jokes, inspecting the wound. "Be glad it was your leg and not your skull. Broken bone, we can mend, but broken brains…"

"Hissrad's brain is already broken," Vasaad calls from the other side of the room, grinning. "His tama told me so." He slings his bag over his shoulder and tosses a potion; Salit catches and uncorks it.

Hissrad drinks it down. The stuff burns, but the sharp pain begins to fade; the vague fog created by torn flesh lifts from his mind.

"Must mean you've got _no_ brains, then," he calls back, shifting his weight to his right side. Salit ducks under his arm and heaves him up. "You wouldn't have had your back to that second room if there was a spare thought in your head."

Vasaad's humor falters. He risks a glance at Hissrad's leg and grimaces. "Sorry, old friend," he says. "You should have let me take the blow."

Hissrad yanks Vasaad's long braid as he passes. "The scar will look better on me."

* * *

There is just the wind in the trees and the grass, and then there's not.

Bull knows how quickly a battle can go wrong—before it's even begun, that fast, and this is one of them. He has good ears and one good eye left to him, but warnings can still sneak by him. Before anyone can notice much of anything, they are surrounded.

He wades into the fray with Cassandra. One of Varric's bolts hisses past and sticks in an outlaw's shoulder; the man grunts and drops his sword, and Bull finishes the job, axe thundering down to cleave the man in two. The body falls. Cassandra's shield rings with the force of her shield bash against armor; Varric taunts; lightning drops in the midst of the pack of outlaws, stunning a few for a handful of heartbeats.

Bull grins and chops at the nearest immobilized enemy. Katrina's electricity is damn useful. She's never hit him with a spell, not even once, though she routinely drops lightning within a few feet of him. There's something about the searing heat of it, the look on a man's face when it's cooking him, that really gets the blood going.

It's magic, sure, but it's _pretty_ magic.

They press forward. There's another wave of bandits on the East Road, and they dispatch each more slowly than the first, but they do finally force them all the way back to their base, a final charge to finish them off. The sizzle in the air crackles, louder with each strike. One of the outlaws sneaks in with daggers on Bull's blind side, and he only notices when the body hits the ground, smoking faintly.

He swings, batting an archer back, and shouts over his shoulder, "Thanks, Boss!"

He hears her laugh back, a little strained and breathless, the sound of her staff hitting the ground.

They're down to the last few attackers when the electricity in the air cuts off. His ears ring with the force of the silence, occupied only by the clash of swords and draw of a crossbow. He turns, but he's too far away to help; she's barely holding off a swordsman with her fingers tight on her staff, her teeth gritted with the effort. The sword scrapes down with an ugly squeal and breaks free, and he cuts straight through her thinner gear, blade opening up her arm with no sound at all—

A crossbow bolt opens the back of the swordsman's head, and he falls.

It's quiet again, only their heavy breathing filling the clearing. The initial surprise has already worn off her face; she's fumbling with her shirt, the air hissing in her throat, to press the torn edges to the wound. Her fingers are stained bright red with blood.

"Shit." Varric's unwinding the sash from his tunic to help stop the bleeding; he guides her a few feet to sit on an outcropping of rock and starts winding it up. "This is nothing. Should've seen Hawke after that Arishok fight—looked like a dragon had chewed right through her."

Katrina tries to smile, but she's started to tremble, the pain setting in.

"Potions, Seeker?" Varric calls. Bull knows the tone—light and easy, everything's fine. Everyone's got that voice in their arsenal, now, reassuring smile and all, even when the blood's watering the grass.

Cassandra _growls_ , digging through her pack. "Out."

"Me, too."

"I've got something." Bull slings his axe onto his back—his harness catches, taking the weight—and goes through his own small pack as he approaches.

"I'm not drinking anything of yours," she says, shaking her head. "I've smelled that stuff, and it's—"

"A poultice, not a potion," he interrupts, unearthing the bottle. "One of my guys is handy with that stuff." When she hesitates, he warns, "You're going to bleed to death otherwise."

Varric gives him the dirtiest look he's ever seen. "Give her some credit, Tiny. She'd hold out till a runner came from our last camp."

"This is faster."

Varric throws up his hands, but Katrina relents. "He's right. You two should make camp."

Cassandra's eyes narrow, but she obliges; Varric waits until she nods at him, gives Bull one last glare, and then goes to help Cassandra clear the bodies.

He sits. The tan she's been cultivating from all this time outdoors has gone, leaving her pale in the bright midday sun. Her hand's clutched tight around the rock, the other lying limp, red trickling from beneath the makeshift bandage.

"Gotta get the sash off," he tells her, upending his water skin over his hands to wash the worst of the dirt away. The stuff in the poultice will help clean the wound, but he likes to be safe.

She has to brace herself, but she starts unwinding. She's got her lower lip clenched so tight between her teeth that he's half-sure she's going to bite all the way through it. Her hands are shaking, but she gets the sash all the way off. The wound's bleeding more sluggishly now; her thick shirt is soaked through.

"You've only got one hand, so I'll do this part," he says, and before she can ask, he tears the sleeve the rest of the way off. "It's gonna sting."

She stares at her bloody arm like she's never seen it before. "It can't hurt worse than it does now."

He chuckles. Better than scaring her—that tactic's already been used up. "Haven't been in a lot of fights, huh?"

"Before the Inquisition, I sat in a tower for most of my—" She yelps and nearly jerks away, but he's ready for that reaction. The hand that isn't smearing the poultice down the line of the wound is holding her shoulder immobile; she doesn't get very far. She doesn't try to move again, but he can feel how tight her muscles are under her shoulder, how hard she's working to keep her breathing even.

"The shock keeps it dull, at first," he says, lowering his voice. "As long as you're not touching it, you think, _it's not so bad_ —you get used to the pain. It's when you've gotta mess with it that it hurts."

She's got her lip between her teeth again. There are tears streaming down her face; she blinks furiously, letting them gather and fall, gather and fall. He's known a lot of people who passed out the first time they got cut open—doesn't blame them, either—and she looks on the verge of it, but she's got her good hand clenched in a tight fist, nails digging into her palm, and judging by her hard-fought breathing and gritted teeth, she's just flat-out refusing.

Maybe she sat in a tower all her life, but she's tough.

Slowly, the muscle under his hand eases. The initial sting of the poultice, he knows, fades as it dries. He starts peeling at the top, inch by inch; the new ridge of a scar appears beneath it, long and ropy down the length of her arm.

Her fist unclenches, fingers flexing. "Nice scar," he tells her, grinning.

She lets out a low, relieved breath and fingers the old mark over her brow. "I've got a long way to go to catch up to you."

"If I do my job right, you won't." He heaves to his feet and offers her a hand up. She takes it, moving her arm gingerly. "Think there's water that way, if you want to wash the rest of that off."

She looks up at him, her face still pale but set now. Her lip is intact, at least, not even bleeding. "Thanks, Bull," she says.

He's helping Cassandra and Varric build camp when she walks back—very quickly—from beneath the overhang. She sits down hard on the dusty rocks. Her arm is still bloody.

"Herald?" Cassandra asks, already moving toward her.

Katrina shakes her head. "There's a dragon over there," she says evenly.

"Shit, really?" Bull says, dumping the last body on the pyre. "Can we fight it?"

She blinks at him, aghast. "No." She presses her forehead to her knees. He hears the deep rattle of her breathing, throat swallowing repeatedly.

"Maybe later," Bull coaxes. "When we're not out of potions."

" _No_."

Her voice is muffled, but he thinks he hears a reluctant quiver of mirth in it. Grinning, he starts pitching his tent just as the scouts arrive. More than one of them gasps over Katrina's new scar, and she waves them off, her face bright red.

Looks good on her. Lively. Her eyes briefly dart to his, and she gives him a crooked, embarrassed smile before she looks away.


	4. Ataash

The wet heat of Par Vollen drapes over him like a warm blanket, but Hissrad doesn't let himself get too comfortable. He won't be here long; he never is. The last time was more than two years ago, and Tama's moved houses, to a new part of Qunandar he's not so familiar with. He gets lost twice on his way to see her.

He remembers how unchangeable she seemed, the first time he came home: her back as tall and straight as it had ever been, her smiles as rare and warm as they'd always been.

Now, though, there are lines around her eyes that he doesn't remember. There's something old and sad there that he's never seen on her face before as she looks at him, and when she finally smiles, it's brittle on the verge of breaking.

"Ashkaari," she says, and then, her gaze wavering, "have you been reassigned?" Her fingers shift uneasily in the folds of her tunic, folding and refolding.

"Sort of," he says, scratching behind one horn.

She'd believe him if he was invested in lying, but he isn't, and her eyes—dark and sharp as ever—see the truth. "You're returning to Seheron."

"Tomorrow," he says. "I've been given command."

She smiles too wide, and he sees her throat working, like she can't get the right words out. He knows the feeling. His gut hasn't stopped turning since he was given the news. His pulse beats too slow, and then too fast.

When he's surrounded by Seheron, he doesn't hope to leave. Here, though, standing in the charged air before a thunderstorm rolls in over Qunandar, he is afraid to go back.

"Don't worry," he says, though he knows she will. "I'll make sure Vasaad doesn't get himself killed."

She blinks; the gleam in her eyes goes so quick that he's not even sure he saw it to begin with. It's not like him, to not be sure.

"Let's have a cup of cocoa," she says, and her voice is steady. "To celebrate."

They don't talk much; they sit in chairs by the window in her little office, sipping their cocoa, and watch the thunderstorm break over Qunandar. She doesn't have a lot of kids anymore, only a few at a time, the troublemakers, the problem cases. Her superiors know she can sort them out, set them on the right path—just like she set him on his. He draws comfort from that, breathes deep the scent of rain-soaked soil, and when he leaves, she pats his cheek like he's a child again. For a fleeting moment, he wishes he was.

* * *

On the day Katrina marches to finally close the Breach, Bull stands in the snow of Haven with the rest of the rabble and waits for her to come back safe.

"A necessary precaution," Cassandra said, and no one disagreed. If they fail—worse, if they die in the attempt—the Inquisition must go on, with or without the Herald.

Bull knows that it won't go on unless she comes back. On a logistic level, she's the only one who can close the damn demon-belching holes in the world. On a deeper level, though—where belief and faith come from—she's a symbol. She's hope. Recruiting, gathering supplies, forging alliances: she is the rope that ties them all together, and without her, they will collapse.

But far, far above them, the Breach wheezes. It flutters. It ripples. It swirls and flashes and closes in on itself—and when it's done, all that's left is clouds, swirling lazily against a sunny sky.

Beside him, Krem sucks in a breath and almost chokes on it. "She did it."

The cheers around them are quickly strangled. They won't believe the worst is over until she stands among them, victorious. They watch the mountain path with their nerves flayed open: Josephine's lip caught between her teeth, Cullen's armor clanking as he paces, Leliana going over every bit of embroidery in her gloves with careful fingers.

There's laughter on her face when she stumbles down the mountain. Cassandra's hand squeezes her shoulder; they trade relieved grins, no wariness or animosity between them. The mages trailing behind them are exhausted—staves dragging, feet trudging—but triumphant. Even Solas, somber guy that he is, has a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.

Josephine is the first to run forward and embrace Katrina, laughing. Cullen clasps her hand, speaking low words of congratulations. She bends an ear to Leliana's thanks. The soldiers all want to touch her: _your worship_ , _my lady_ , _thank you, thank you, thank you_ —and for once, the flush on her face is born of pride rather than discomfort. She shakes hands, grasps shoulders, smiles so warmly that he can feel it cutting the cool mountain air to pieces. The mages get a warm welcome, too, probably the warmest they've ever had; he can see it in the confusion and awe in their faces when the soldiers and workers clap their backs, _Maker bless you_ , _Andraste keep you_.

Over the heads of the crowd, her eyes search him out. She usually can't hold eye contact for long, but today she beams, and waves, and lets the crowd carry her toward the tavern.

He knows the old swell of pride in his chest; he felt it in Seheron, when the only decisions were bad ones, and his men still accepted them without question—made them without question, when he couldn't. He knows that feeling it here will only make it harder to leave, if the Ben-Hassrath ever ask him to return.

 _When_ the Ben-Hassrath ask him to return.

It's only a matter of time, now that the Breach is closed; his rehabilitation in southern Thedas was never supposed to last forever. His assignment with the Inquisition has gone off without any problems. He'll never be fit for Seheron again, but Par Vollen?

He looks sideways at Krem, still whistling and cheering as Katrina's mob passes by. The boys will be okay. Krem'll make a fine Chief. He'll be able to carry the reputation Bull's made for the group; he won't take any crap from the nobles unless it gets him somewhere.

The Inquisition's still got a lot of rifts to close, but they don't need Bull for that.

He could go home.

Something about it just doesn't sit like it should. Makes his horns itch.

"Let's get a drink, Chief," Krem says. Even if he wasn't too relieved to notice a damn thing, he still wouldn't know that Bull feels as if he's been frozen to this patch of dirt, like he put down roots outside this crappy tent when he wasn't paying attention.

Bull goes along. He has a drink, he toasts the Herald, and when the Singing Maiden has finally thinned out a bit, dancers spilling out of the tavern and into the snowy night, she drops down on the bench beside him a bit more heavily than she usually would. She grins brightly up at him, raising her glass.

There's something about everyone—well, not everyone, but every generally decent person, at least—that makes them special. Interesting. Some little detail, like a tiny lock that shows the way into who they really are, if you just know how to turn the key. Most people, if you're observant enough, you get a glimpse, and that's it; they're already behind you, and you'll never know what's beyond that door. Bull glimpses more than most, but he knows better than to think that he _knows_ the people he observes: he knows if they're a threat, and how—only the useful information, only the things that affect him. There's plenty of crap he doesn't know.

The more time he spends in the field with her, or standing in the damn snow talking to her, the more locks he sees: the way her hair is always perfectly, tightly coiled, until she gets on a horse or in a battle and the flyaway strands blow free; the way she's delicate as a surgeon with lightning but blunt as an axe when it comes to flirting, and she _knows_ it, the red in her face a dead giveaway; the way she asks questions, and asks, and asks, and then asks some more, to other people, just in case, even though she's afraid, always, of the answer.

He won't be here long enough to know any more than he already does, but he thinks that, maybe later tonight when all the pomp and ceremony is done, he'll finally pay her back all the awful flirting she's been doing these past few months. He'll turn up at the door of her little cabin and she'll open the way for him, sleep-warm, with a sunny flush on her face. She'll gasp when he kisses her; she'll wedge her way into his arms and cling to him.

It's only one night, but it'll be something warm to carry with him on the journey north.

Later, when the cold's finally getting to him, he thinks about that moment of potential, cut nearly as soon as it bloomed. He remembers it when he turns back to look for her and she's not there; he remembers it when the trebuchet flies loose; he remembers it when the snow of her last stand buries Haven and her with it. He remembers the color in her face and the grin on her lips and how, when he nudged her shoulder with his, she leaned against him, chuckling, and closed her eyes.

* * *

The first time Hissrad saw Seheron, it was on fire.

It is no different now. It seems to him, after five years and hundreds of battles, that Seheron is always burning.

He can feel Par Vollen at his back, growing smaller with each beat of the oars. He does not know if he'll ever see it again. The last man who held his position turned Tal-Vashoth; the others have died or now have too much qamek addling their brains to see Qunandar clearly.

The Imperium has sown chaos here in his absence. The Fog Warriors are doing their best to retake what little they can while one adversary is not fully present. Smoke rises up to meet the stars, fog creeping from the trees to caress the shore. There is fighting, out of sight. He can hear the shouting, the delayed echo of blades meeting.

They are one small fleet in a sea of chaos, and for the shortest instant, Hissrad feels what his predecessor must have felt, the man who now harvests cocoa beans with no fear at all in his eyes: rising terror, like the waves bearing them toward the shore.

He has until their ship meets the sand to master it. He breathes deep, takes the smoke into his lungs, and lets it out. Behind him, his men shout to each other, coordinating the landing. They are too busy to see the fires, and he is glad for that. The smell fills his nose, and it's as if this is the only place he's ever known, as if the walls of Qunandar are only a dream.

"Ready, old friend?" Vasaad asks, his daggers already bare.

Gatt is ready, too; Hissrad can feel him itching, dying to get in the thick of those Vints and cut their hearts out, one by one.

At the treeline, he sees movement. The Fog Warriors are never spotted in their own mist; it's Tal-Vashoth or Vints, waiting to welcome them. He pulls his axe from his back as the boat shudders to a halt.

They are only still a minute, and then the shadows in the trees emerge: the ghosts of his brethren, people he might have known, people he might have trusted. People like his predecessor, people who didn't get to the re-educators fast enough, nothing left to salvage in their heads, just rage, just violence, just chaos. They bear bloody weapons. They sight his ships with growls on their lips.

One of them might be Salit.

He lifts his axe. His men follow him overboard into the surf. By the time dawn brightens the eastern sky, the sand is red with the enemies of the Qun.


	5. Asala-taar

_Vasaad's throat drips red._

_Red like vitaar fresh-painted, still smudged at the edges. Red like vitaar softened by rain, running in thin rivulets down vulnerable flesh. Vasaad stares up at him from the floor and sees nothing, the snarl easing from his mouth._

_"They won't catch me," he says, eyes fixed on an empty sky._

_"I go first," Hissrad tries to say, but the words come out in Common, not Qunlat._

_"You're too big a target," Vasaad's corpse tells him. The blood flows slower now, the heartbeat in his throat fading._

_Hissrad kneels in the sand. "I told you to wait."_

_Vasaad's eyes close. "Anaan esaam qun," he says._

* * *

Hissrad paces his cell.

He strikes the rough stone wall when the anger builds up, bright enough and hot enough to burst. He cannot hurt anyone here but himself, and there is not much left of him to hurt. The stumps of his fingers ache without pause—sharper when his hand meets the wall, duller in between, his heartbeat hot and thick at the severed knuckles. The weaker bone in his ankle protests every step.

But still he paces, every waking hour. If he is worn down enough, he will not dream.

* * *

_Gatt shakes his arm, his fingers pinching already-mangled flesh. "You can't say here, Hissrad." His voice rises with anger, cracks with desperation. "You need medical attention. Please, come with me."_

_But Hissrad belongs_ here _. If he lies down in the sand, he will be just another abandoned body. He is no different than the Tal-Vashoth he killed. Seheron has broken him, as it breaks everyone, sooner or later. If he can slaughter these men—men who used to fight at his side, men he used to command, men who commanded him—then he can slaughter anyone. The fruit vendor. His family. His friends. Gatt. Tama._

_He has already killed Vasaad._

* * *

It should not take this long to decide to fill him full of qamek.

It has been five days; he is not so gone to the world that he cannot count the feeding schedule. They cannot be deliberating this. They should make no exceptions for him. They have made no exceptions for the others beaten on Seheron's shores. They must do the same. He submitted himself to him with the understanding that they would behave as they always have, and if they are not going to uphold their end, he should have tossed his axe aside and let that last Tal-Vashoth kill him.

They must know this. They will decide soon. He will be a good laborer—strong, even with all his injuries. He will harvest the most cocoa beans of anyone. It is a wise decision. The Qun can still make use of him. He will harm no one.

He will know only the groves, the smell of Par Vollen's jungles, simple comforts. Home. The only way he can go home, now. He will not remember Seheron.

* * *

_Kas is better at climbing than Ashkaari. He is skinnier, faster, his hands finding sure holds in the tree. Bark peels off and falls in his wake, but his hands always move before a perch gives way._

_"Won't get me up here!" he shouts down, swinging from a vine to a branch._

_"I'll get Tama," Ashkaari warns._

_Kas pulls an arrow from his belt, grinning. "Cocoa is fine to steal, but this isn't?" he demands, twirling it between his fingers._

_"You'll get hurt," Ashkaari says, searching for the holds that Kas used to climb. They're half-destroyed by his ascent, of no use to Ashkaari._

_Kas's body falls from the tree, lands spread-eagled in the sand. Ashkaari is too small to carry him, has to work to turn him. His throat is red like vitaar._

* * *

"You have asked to be repaired or destroyed as best serves the Qun." This is a man he does not know, on the seventh day.

"Yes," Hissrad says. He means to say, _I have always been broken; I can only be destroyed; I will drink the qamek without fuss_ —but the man is talking on. He does not have horns.

"You will travel south," the man says. "You will act as a Tal-Vashoth. You will send intelligence back to us."

It is not his place to question the decision, so he does so only in his head. When he walks free, he boards a boat. He does not say goodbye to Tama, to Gatt. He cannot look into their faces when they know the Qun has left him.

* * *

When Bull emerges from the tavern, two weeks after they've settled at Skyhold, Cassandra has company at the practice dummies.

The shadows under Katrina's eyes are more like bruises. The guards say that she walks the battlements at odd hours, come and goes from her quarters well after all but the night watch are sleeping. They whisper about it over their ale in tones of awe and worry.

He's hardly heard a dozen words out of her since she staggered into camp, frozen half to death, nursing frostbite and broken bones. She comes by the tavern every few days, sits down with a drink for the rest of them, but she's monosyllabic when addressed. When she thinks no one's looking, she stares down that middle-distance, no expression at all on her slack face. She leaves her cup half-full at the end of the night and pretends to turn in.

She hasn't so much as blushed since she came back to them; it's like something's died inside her, and even her lifeblood knows. Sometimes there's just no bouncing back from something like Haven.

She's trying, at least; he sees it in the force of the blocks and strikes she trades with Cassandra, basic quarterstaff exercises with no stirring of magic. The sun's only been up an hour, but they're both sweating.

"That's enough for today," Cassandra says, the butt of her staff hitting the ground.

"I can do more," Katrina argues. He's sure she's never used that tone with Cassandra before—usually it's all deference, a little nerves, as if the Seeker's another templar to fear—but now she _challenges_ , her voice fierce. "I need to learn this, I need to—"

" _Rest_ ," Cassandra says. "You need to _rest_ , Inquisitor."

Katrina huffs, pushing a stray lock of hair off her forehead, her eyes narrowed. She might be running on empty, but the stubborn set of her mouth gives no ground. Cassandra begins to reach out, as though to touch Katrina's shoulder. Despite the new, uneasy peace between them since Haven, Katrina flinches from it, and Cassandra's hand falls.

"I can take over," Bull offers, stepping into the light.

Cassandra gives him the filthiest look he's ever seen; Katrina only hefts her staff, as if unsurprised by his appearance.

"Excellent," she says crisply. "Thank you for your help, Cassandra."

She _is_ Inquisitor now; she can dismiss anyone if she really wants, and it _is_ a dismissal. Cassandra gives her a look that might be exasperated pride, but she's adjusting her grip on the staff, and she doesn't see.

Cassandra looks up at him as she passes, a faint warning in her wrinkled brow, but when he rolls his eye, the lines in her face ease. She hands over the staff without fuss. He won't let Katrina overdo it, and she knows it.

He puts her through strikes first. She doesn't try to start a conversation; she just hits, and hits, and hits, the sweat running down her face, her eyes narrowed. He corrects her stance and her hands when he sees them sliding closer to what she'd use when she's casting instead of hitting. She'll never be able to knock _him_ down, but she's got enough force behind her strikes to hold off someone smaller, as long as she doesn't panic.

When they switch to blocks, he says, "Corypheus really spooked you, huh."

Her grip on her staff slips. He raps her knuckles with his hit, and she winces. Padded gloves or not, he knows it stings.

"Why do you say that?" she asks, eyes on his staff instead of his face.

"Shit, he spooked me."

She snorts. "Was it the Vint part, the darkspawn part, or the magic part?"

He ignores the derisive tone in her voice—like she's not afraid of every one of those things, too. "You're sparring without magic," he points out.

A muscle in her jaw twitches. Her mouth opens, an angry gash about to go on mocking him, berate him into dropping it, but he smacks her knuckles again and she lets out a long, trembling breath instead.

"I need every tool I can use." She moves her hands apart, holding tighter to the staff. "Honestly, I've neglected this too long. I thought I could make do with just magic, but what happens when I run dry and someone gets too close?" She blocks correctly this time. "Not that I think I could kill Corypheus with my staff—"

He snorts this time; it's a nice image. She's tall for a human, but even so, she'd have to make a decent leap to jab Corypheus in any vulnerable bits.

She gives him a faint smile, as though she, too, is imagining it. "But I've got to at least live to face him again, so. Until then, I need to be able to hold someone off without magic if they get too close. Cassandra recommended this."

"Smart," he agrees. "You've already got the strength to swing a staff around. Won't take that much more practice to hit people with it, too."

She nods. "Exactly."

He lets her be. They only talk when he points out that her footing's gone awry or her hands are straying too close together on the staff. He listens for the crier over the clack of their weapons; whether she likes it or not, he'll make her stop at the next hour.

"Bull," she says eventually, in a tiny voice that says she's been psyching herself up to say it. Her eyes are pinched at the corners, but clear and dry. She takes a deep breath, adjusting her hold on her staff. "What do you do," she says, "when you stop believing?"

She looks at him, her eyes finally catching and holding, and he knows that she doesn't _know_. Not really. She's not good enough at reading facial expressions and body cues to dismantle him, and he's not bad enough at lying to let any of it show through—but on some intuitive level, she _knows_. She knows that he's stopped thinking of himself as Hissrad. She knows about the roots. She knows that he doesn't know if he could go home, if he could live in the Qun again.

She knows, because otherwise, she wouldn't ask.

He doesn't like to admit it. He _doesn't_ admit it. He doesn't think about it. Hissrad or the Iron Bull, it doesn't matter; he's still Qunari. Even if he never sees Par Vollen again, even if the Ben-Hassrath leave him here to spy forever, he goes on serving the Qun. There's a place for him. It's a shitty place, full of doubt, shot through with fear, but there's still a place for the piece that Seheron spat back out. The piece the re-educators made.

Maybe someday they'll even make him whole, as he's never been. In the meantime, he can keep fumbling along, the memory of the Qun—a lifetime ago—to bear him forward.

"You decide if the cause you were fighting for is still worth it," he tells her. "Duty is more important than faith."

He knows what her answer will be, even if she doesn't say it. It's been her answer from the beginning, even when she was scared out of her mind. She doesn't need faith to stick this out.

He didn't.

There's something almost serene in her hazel eyes: realization made, decision reached. Maybe she doesn't know it yet, but everything gets a little easier after that.

She shoulders her staff just as the crier calls the hour. "D'you want to go to the Hinterlands tomorrow?" she asks. "I want to fight that dragon."

"Shit, _yes_."

She laughs at his enthusiasm—a worn sound, small, but hopeful. "I'll tell the others. Pack that poultice, will you? I bet the damn thing'll try to bite me."

"It'll try to _roast_ you, boss," he tells her, already envisioning it.

"Good thing I've got you to stand in front of me, then," she quips, her eyes cutting down, a jaunty curl to her mouth.

There'll be ups and downs—the inevitable oscillation between suffering and surviving. She'll sleep without dreaming one night, wake up screaming the next; she'll smile and flirt in the morning and hole herself in her quarters by nightfall.

Killing a dragon, though? That's a hell of an up.


	6. Itwasaam

Technically, dreadnoughts  _do_ sink. They sink in smoking, ashy pieces, little fires starting and ending on the water, born on the waves and dying there, too. He can't hear a single shout from on board; they're too far, and there probably isn't a cry to hear, anyway. A whimper, at most.

Katrina stands beside him, her face hard, shoulders stiff. There's rain on her face, and the sick cooked-meat smell lingering in the wake of her last lightning bolt. She doesn't apologize. He doesn't want her to. She made the right call.

He's only angry that he let her make it. Now that he's been cast adrift, he is disappointed that the first choice in his new life was decided for him, that someone else gave the order and he followed, like he's always done.

He hates, too, that he'll never know if he'd have fought her, if she'd leaned the other way. Would he have listened to his men go to their deaths? Would he have demanded that she choose differently? Would he have turned on her, on Gatt, and died fighting with his Chargers?

Would he have fallen in line and let them die?

He knows what would have made him a better Qunari—healed again, pieced back together, the re-educators' jobs done. Hard to know these days if that's what he should want, let alone if that's what he _does_ want.

If he cared for the Qun more than he cared for his boys, he would have fought her.

 _Liar_. He sees Gatt's face, twisted up in disgust. _It means liar._

Her fingers reach out to brush his: small, cold, tucked against his palm, and he lets her. They watch until the fires stop.

His name was supposed to be Sten. He'd never have met her then.

* * *

When they've returned to Skyhold, when assassins have been dealt with, Katrina leaves him be.

She doesn't avoid him. She passes through the tavern, waves from the stairs as she climbs up to speak to Sera or Cole, but she doesn't press him for conversation the way she once did—voice stammering, cheeks pink. She meets his gaze, calls a hello to Krem, and goes on her way: no questions to ask, no small talk to make.

Anyone else might think that, now that his reports are dust and the Qunari aren't coming, she's decided she doesn't need him, but he knows it's not true. She's just decided that the next move is his. He remembers her face on those battlements, the furious way she'd knotted up her handkerchief and pressed it to his wound, the wind unsuccessful in carrying her heated voice away.

 _A good man_ , she'd insisted, eyes glaring, daring him to contradict her. There were no sparks of lightning on her hands, but he'd smelled the clean heat of it all the same.

He mounts the stairs to her quarters mid-afternoon, not long before she's expected to emerge from the war council. He's never been in this room before—only at the base of the stairs, steadying her on her feet as she laughed with Maraas-Lok on her breath, eyes squinted-up and sparkling. There's too much space, and she's tried to fill it: books spilling over the edges of the corner shelves, across her desk, into stacks on the floor; the couch positioned _here_ but just recently it had been over _there_ , where the indentation in the rug marks its recent departure; so many blankets on the bed, as though to make it look bigger than it is.

He can still leave, he tells himself. That's a choice, too.

He's never taken anyone to bed that he didn't like—too much effort, too little reward—but he's never really had sex with a friend, either. He's crossed plenty of lines pretending to be Tal-Vashoth, but there were a few he didn't touch, and he'd told her so when the ham-handed flirtations became a regular thing.

He doesn't _mind_ the ham-handed flirting. It's sort of endearing, how bad she is at it. She's probably never had to practice before; she gets perfectly chatty when drunk, in a way she never is sober, and she'd once insisted that flirting wasn't really a necessary prerequisite to bedding in Ostwick.

"Look, it was easy," she'd said, mouth twisting as she considered the bottom of her drink. "Declare interest, preferably in as blunt a manner as possible, so as not to waste time—"

Krem, who'd been taking a drink, choked. Bull thumped him on the back, grinning.

"—hopefully they reciprocate," she went on, a little louder to be heard above Krem's ongoing hacking, "and they usually do, because you've only so many options—"

Krem slumped forward on the table, shaking with laughter now that the coughing was done.

"—and there you have it, a mutually beneficial tryst," she concluded. "Maybe do it again sometime, if they're not absolutely terrible at it, and some of them definitely are." Grimacing, she finished off her drink and put the mug down. "It's a lot more complicated out in the world, apparently, especially when you've got a magical green glowing _thing_ attached to your hand. D'you know no one's wanted to sleep with me since—"

But she caught Bull's eye then, as if remembering who she was speaking to, and turned a bright shade of red. Krem took deep, shuddering breaths, every last one so strained that Bull was sure he'd pulled something.

"Y'know, boss, one of the tavern girls is interested," Bull offered, and she'd turned even redder. "And she's not _terrible_ , if you know what I mean."

Krem, hiccupping, shoved away from the table and staggered off without saying goodbye or otherwise trying to speak. It was probably for the best.

"No, uhm," she said, looking frantically around as if planning to drown herself in the nearest pitcher, "I'm quite alright, thanks, I…I get along on my own—"

Maybe she realized exactly how that sounded, because she let out a horrified squeal and pressed her face to the table.

"I wouldn't put that hand anywhere near my stuff, to be honest," he said, grinning.

"I'm _right-handed_ ," she said, muffled by the tabletop, and he snickered. "I'm never drinking this stuff again. I hope I don't remember this tomorrow. I hope _you_ don't remember this tomorrow. If you do, pretend you forgot."

"Never," he told her, refilling her mug. "You're funny when you're drunk."

"I'm _mortifying_ ," she groaned. "I'm _never_ funny."

She's wrong. Sure, she comes off a little straight-laced at first, but once she gets comfortable, there's a subtle, mischievous twist to her words—a sense of humor that comes out in the open when she's not so afraid. He doesn't know what made her that way, but he _wants_ to know.

Whatever it is, he knows at least one thing: she needs a place to feel safe. Put down the green glowing thing on her hand for a little while, just be Kat, not Ser Trevelyan or Herald or Inquisitor. When you're as jumpy as she is—as suspicious as she is—you can't let your guard down around just anyone. They have to know what they're doing.

It's something he can give her. Not because he owes her—her call was her call, and she's not the type to keep track of debts and favors—but because she deserves it anyway, and because he wants to, and because he's pretty sure she wants to, too.

He has wanted other things. People not to be dead. A potion, a technique, that would make him the man who could bear Seheron again. To forget the look on Gatt's face when his mouth formed the word _Tal-Vashoth_.

But this is different. This is something new to want, not a nail picking around in the same old wound. Like he's shuffling forward, instead of trying desperately to go back.

There are mismatched drapes haphazardly strung up around the windows; he pulls every last one of them down. There's still an hour of light left before the sun slips behind the mountains, and he plans to use every minute of it.

He sits down on her bed to wait. It's neatly made, mountain of blankets all folded, but it smells like her, this close to the bedclothes—like an oncoming storm, like rain sinking deep in thirsty soil. Now that he's thinking about it, like that, it's a nice smell. Clean. New. Is it just the lingering scent of her magic, or is it something in her soap?

Downstairs, the door creaks open. Her footsteps wander, aimless. She's got a stack of reports in hand, still tense and worried over whatever hundred things were discussed at the war table. It takes a moment after she gets to the top to look up, to notice, but right on cue, her face blooms with heat and her eyes fill with want. She drops the stack of reports, but not accidentally; she looks straight at him and lets them go.

He'll say the words, but he already knows the answer. He's had few moments of certainty since being sent away—from his people, from his post, from his home—but in her, he finds some kernel of it. It's in the way she smiles as he advances, the way she settles back on her heels, the tension already melting from her shoulders; it's in the way she looks up at him, like she's finally forgotten everything else, and says _please_.

Maybe there isn't a place for him in the Qun; maybe there never was. But there's a place for him here.

He'll take it.


End file.
